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Welcome
This section provides foundational knowledge about artificial intelligence to help you understand how AI systems work and how they're trained to be helpful, safe, and accurate. Whether you're curious about the technology behind the BYU-Idaho Support Agent or want to better understand AI in general, these guides offer accessible explanations without requiring technical expertise.
What You'll Learn
This section covers essential topics that explain how modern AI systems work:
- How LLMs Are Trained — The three-phase journey from raw data to production-ready AI, including real-world examples and costs.
- What is Model Alignment? — How AI systems learn to behave in helpful, safe, and trustworthy ways that match human values.
- What is a Context Window? — How AI remembers (and forgets) within a conversation.
- What Are Tokens? — The units AI tools use to process language and measure usage.
- Chatbot vs Agent — The difference between rule-based chatbots and reasoning AI agents.
- AI Glossary — Definitions of the AI terms you'll encounter most often.
Why This Matters
Understanding these fundamentals helps you:
- Use AI more effectively — Know what questions to ask and how to get better results
- Recognize capabilities and limitations — Understand what AI can and cannot do
- Evaluate AI responses — Identify when to trust answers and when to verify information
- Appreciate the technology — See the engineering and effort behind simple AI interactions
Getting Started
Each article is written for non-technical readers and uses analogies and real-world examples to explain complex concepts. Start with any topic that interests you—they're designed to stand alone while also connecting to each other. Together, they provide a comprehensive introduction to how modern AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and the BYU-Idaho Support Agent work.